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If Killing Journalists Is a War Crime, Why Isn’t Anyone Stopping It?

The past two years have seen a record number of media workers killed

On April 22, Amal Khalil, a journalist for Lebanese outlet Al-Akhbar, was killed after an Israeli airstrike targeted a house in which she and freelance photojournalist Zeinab Faraj had sought cover. According to details released by the Lebanese health ministry, while rescuers were able to reach Faraj, who suffered a head injury, a stun grenade and gunfire prevented them from getting to Khalil. She was later found dead under the rubble.

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Israel denies targeting the journalists and blocking aid from reaching them and has said the matter is under review.

But the details are all too familiar. Khalil was the ninth journalist killed in Lebanon this year, according to Lebanese officials. The toll adds to the unprecedented number of media workers who have been killed in Israel’s genocidal retaliation against Palestinians in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, and the taking of hostages. In 2025 alone, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recorded 129 killings of journalists around the world, the highest number since the organization began its tracking in 1992. Israeli forces were responsible for two-thirds of those deaths.

Many of those killed on the job were Palestinian. And they’re not the only targets: according to a 2025 report by the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, more than 700 family members of journalists have been killed by the Israeli military since October 2023. Yet Israeli officials routinely deny targeting journalists or claim that those killed are militants posing as media workers.

Journalists are broadly treated as civilians under international law and international humanitarian law. Targeting them militarily is a war crime. Despite outcry from organizations such as the United Nations and the CPJ, no one has been held responsible for journalists’ killings.

Sonya Fatah, an associate professor of journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University and co-lead of the Canada Press Freedom Project, is among those agitating for greater accountability, including more news coverage. I spoke with her about what it means for potential war crimes to go underreported and how that reflects on the state of press freedom around the world—including in Canada.

Let’s start with the news coverage. There’s been some reporting on journalists’ targeted killings in Gaza and beyond. Why do you consider it to be insufficient?

Typically speaking, when you have an extreme press freedom violation issue, there is a huge response to it. I always think about the case of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist who was brutally assassinated by Saudi authorities in 2018. When that happened, there was a huge outcry. News organizations wrote editorials. Journalism associations went up in arms. There were lots of signed letters. There was active conversation in television broadcasts.

And that’s not happening now, at least not to the same extent. Why do you think that is?

I think what it raises is the challenge of free and fair journalism and how much foreign policy and cultural........

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